McCready’s buck green-scores almost 160 inches
Aaron McCready was returning from a duck scouting trip when he spied a big buck trail cameras had previously identified standing on his family’s property — only 30 yards away.
As a result of that sighting, McCready and his younger brother, Caleb began a series of moves that eventually led to the downing of the big 10-point buck.
“My family owns a 60-acre block of woods in Morehouse Parish where this incident took place,” said McCready. “I am a serious duck hunter and was returning from a scouting trip up the Ouachita River trying to locate where the ducks were hanging out.
“We have never seriously deer hunted on the property until game cameras began revealing a big buck that was showing up.”
On the morning of Jan. 4, Aaron and Caleb agreed that while Aaron would be checking out the ducks, Caleb would sit on the only deer stand on the property. A text message between the two looked anything but promising: Caleb had not seen any deer while sitting on the stand that morning.
“I was driving back from my duck scouting trip and as I passed our property, there is an opening in the woods where I always look to see if might spot a deer. I couldn’t believe that when I looked, the big buck we had on camera was standing in the opening not 30 yards off the road. I didn’t have a gun with me so I hurried to where Caleb was parked, called him and told him to meet me at his truck,” Aaron said.
After meeting up with Caleb, the pair began walking down a trail that leads to a small pond and a power line crossing. It was Aaron’s plan for the pair to intercept the buck in a block of woods and for Caleb to be the shooter.
“As we walked along the trail keeping an eye out for the buck, two does jumped up and ran in the direction I had seen the buck. Then Caleb whispered loudly, ‘There he is.’ I dropped to my knees, put my fingers in my ears and instructed Caleb to rest the gun on my shoulder. Before he could get the scope on him, the buck took off,” he continued.
Believing the big deer was still in the woods on their property, they continued to sneak along when the two does they had jumped earlier took off again, with the buck not five yards behind them. The big deer ran out about 40 yards and stopped.
“My brother who was lagging behind had handed me the rifle, our dad’s Remington 7 mm Mag, and I kneeled down, got the scope on and shot,” Aaron said. “The buck ran about 30 yards and was about to fall but I didn’t take a chance — so I put another bullet in him and he dropped.”
Walking up to the fallen buck, Aaron realized he had never come close to downing a deer that size.
“My biggest before this deer probably scored 40 inches less than this big one,” he said. “It was an unbelievable experience.”
The buck, which tipped the scales at 200 pounds, was at least 4 ½ years old, and carried a rack of 10 points with an impressive inside spread of 22 ⅞ inches. At Simmons’ Sporting Goods Big Buck Contest, the rack was measured at 159 6/8 inches.
